Dragon's Wrath: The Cursed Returnee

In the end, Ethan only managed to see all those things until he had lunch with the royal family. After all this time, he wasn't supposed to feel embarrassed about it, but since he really was a moron back then, Ethan canceled Zen before he could progress. Only to see Emily staring at him from very close.

"What are you doing?" Ethan asked.

"Sorry, I thought your faced looked red for some reason, so I decided to check," Emily said. "Are you embarrassed? I never saw someone getting embarrassed while meditating."

"… I am just a bit cold," Ethan said.

Ethan didn't mind sharing some things about him, but if he could, he would avoid talking about how awkward he was in the past and focus on his good parts, even though there weren't many of them.

Ethan would probably feel embarrassed again, even though he had no right to feel such things after the life he had in Hedo, a life where he took countless lives without a hint of hesitation… in any case, he couldn't stop using Zen. One of the good things about that skill was the fact that Ethan could revive certain moments of his life. However, he couldn't jump straight into the moment he wanted. Fortunately, time inside his head passed differently, so ten hours of relieving all those memories would be equal to one hour in the real world. Still, that was one effect of the skill he had thanks to his status as a hero, and Omni Hero, the mage who taught him that skill, never mentioned the part where he experimented with his past. In any case, just like Ethan could experiment with his past much faster there, he also could train certain skills ten times faster.

"The problem with this is that I once pass a certain moment of my past, I can't go back until I start the whole process from the very beginning. Besides, the skill only works from the moment mana begins to flow through my body."

It had been almost torture, but Ethan endured those memories that he wanted to pay to forget. Finally, after a few hours, he reached the moment that he wanted. When he was summoned to Hedo, Ethan spent the first day getting closer to the royal family, not that he wanted. Still, it was something that Alexander had decided to do. According to him, he couldn't just summon someone and send them straight to battle. They summoned a hero, not a mad dog.

On the second day, Ethan learned the situation that the world was in. How many countries have fallen due to the attack of the demons and how they advance through the humans' territory. On the third day, Ethan met three instructors. They were the only people who taught Ethan how to fight, but they only did it for a week because their homes were close to the frontlines, and they headed there when they heard that demons had invaded. Ethan's instructors were a tall, black-haired man who was always with a bit sword on his back. His name was Hugo. A short-haired blond woman, who also never went anywhere without her dangers and her longbow, her name was Catty. And an old man who never showed his face to Ethan since he was always wearing a robe that covered his body from head to toe. His name was Lucius.

"Now that I think about it… weirdly, their names are also used on Earth. I traveled through three planets now, and only Hedo had names that were close to ours…"

Regardless, the job of those three was to teach Ethan how to fight with all kinds of weapons and also how to use magic. Lucius soon told Ethan to give up on magic since he had no talent, but at least he taught him how to meditate. Besides, even though Ethan didn't learn anything in the past, by reliving those memories, he could learn it now. It wasn't that efficient, but Ethan decided to relive the first the day he trained with them several times since Hugo trained him in the morning, Catty trained him in the afternoon, and Lucius taught him the basics of magic in the evening.

"Who are you, kid, really?" Hugo asked after frowning when he saw Ethan for the first time. "We are at war and one of the few that can turn even old men and kids into decent soldiers fast enough. Knowing that I am vital to the kingdom, why the hell would the king stop my work to train a single runt?"

"I have no idea, sir," Ethan said. "I am just obeying the king as well."

Ethan was told that he couldn't reveal his identity as a hero, so he could only play dumb. Still, although Hugo had a hulk-like frame and was also scary, Ethan was quite excited about his training. He was lazy, but even someone like him could train hard with a leveling-up system, right?

In the end, Ethan didn't learn much that day while he was training with Hugo. The hulk-like soldier told him to show what he could do, and Ethan could barely raise a long sword, much less attack with it. Thanks to it, Hugo forced Ethan to spend the entire morning running while carrying his long sword and a set of light armor. Even though he was weak, Ethan he had hero-like powers, and he could recover his stamina pretty fast. Somehow, he endured running for the entire morning while carrying fifteen kilograms of iron over his body.

Congratulations! The skill Vigor has leveled up!

Congratulations! For leveling up the skill you learned by yourself, you obtained ten coins.

"You have spirit, kid," Hugo said, satisfied. "Tomorrow, you will learn how to swing a sword."

Ethan was exhausted mentally and physically since the training had been boring as hell at the same point; it had been spartan. However, after a couple of minutes, his body was fine, and he recovered just after Catty appeared.

"I forgot that I spent basically a week without having lunch thanks to them… I hated them for it, but after I learned of their deaths…"

Catty was very different from Hugo, but her presence alone still demanded respect from others. Still, as much as she was beautiful, she was silent. Catty only tossed a bow and some arrows at Ethan's feet and then pointed at a target. When Ethan tried to fire a hand, she hit him with a pebble in the head.

"Hold the arrow with the second and the third finger," Catty said.

Ethan frowned since she could have said that earlier and without hitting him, but he decided to obey quietly. After correcting that, Ethan got hit again. Although Ethan didn't have much experience with girls, much fewer women, his patience had a limit.

"Align your arm at the same height as your shoulders," Catty said.

Ethan took a deep breath and then obeyed again. However, this time he looked at her while he was pulling the string. Catty smiled a little. Ethan was many things, but not a complete imbecile, it seemed.

"Use the muscles of your back, and don't pull the string for too long," Catty said. "You will only tire yourself out, and your aim will tremble."

It looked like Catty didn't have many other things to say, so Ethan decided to focus on the target this time. Although his target was only thirty meters away, Ethan missed by a large margin, and he destroyed a part of the castle's garden.

"Use all those arrows and then go look for them," Catty said. "You will repeat the same thing until you hit the bull's eye at least once today."